


Inevitable, unavoidable

by Lilian



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Emotional Roller Coaster, Feelings, First Kiss, Flustered Aziraphale (Good Omens), Getting Together, Husbands, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Pining Crowley (Good Omens), Quote: You go too fast for me Crowley (Good Omens), Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), Soft Crowley (Good Omens), Temporary Amnesia, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 05:05:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19244416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilian/pseuds/Lilian
Summary: ""Can I touch you?”“Please, go ahead,” Crowley croaks, wondering if this will be something he will have to provide an explanation to Aziraphale later when he remembers. Or if it will be something they’ll simply never, ever mention again. He might die, in that case. Although he might just die now, too, when the angel raises his index finger and follows the shape of Crowley’s eyebrows reverently."Or: Aziraphale gets amnesia and thinks Crowley is his husband when he sees him.





	Inevitable, unavoidable

**Author's Note:**

> for hippocrates460, who named the fic. Thanks, I'm thinking one specific emoji very hard at you. (Hint: it's NOT the heart.) 
> 
> as for everyone else, I hope you like this. :)
> 
> An important note: If Crowley messes up the date at some point, it's not because I was too tired to look up the right date, its because he is a dumbass and he is so flustered by his angel that he can't remember what year it is correctly.

 

Crowley is trying to decide between drinking straight from the bottle or simply swinging it against the wall to watch how it breaks when _it_ happens.

They had been four days after the Not-Apocalypse when Mr Fell (as the Police Woman explained to him later) had suffered a fatal injury via a drunk driver. She said (reading it out of her notebook) that Aziraphale’s parting words were “tell Crowley not to worry, I’ve got a favour to cash in with Paul”.

Paul was, of course, the Head of the Discorporation office (nothing as ghastly as the humans imagined, the one with the keys and the pearly gate and such).

According to his (dying? body leaving?) wish, Crowley did not worry. At all. No, he just paced around nervously, destroyed enough of his Mayfair flat to make it not particularly comfortable to remain there (and to put some much-needed fear into the flowers), so he went over to the bookshop to agonise. (Which was strictly not worrying, so it was fine.) He reorganised the Erotica section by the size of books (starting from very small to incredibly… girthy) because messing with his books always pissed Aziraphale off, and Crowley wanted to get a telling off so badly, just to stop the repeating memory of ‘ _I’ll never talk to you again_ ’ playing ping-pong in his brain.

Fury, despair, and fear soon made him flee to the small wine collection the angel kept in the pantry. And a few minutes later there he was, not knowing whether to drink himself to death or to watch the fine wine slide down the wall, painting it red.

A blinding light interrupts him in his important decision-making process, and Crowley’s heart pounds madly when he sees the figure appear in the middle of the well-lit floor.

Aziraphale, exactly as he _was_ , soft and beautiful and annoyingly curly-haired, seemingly… real and alive, in front of him again. Crowley wondered how his new body will look, of course (not that it matters), but the last thing he was expecting is for the angel to look _exactly the same_. He is talking, with a familiar worried tone too, wriggling his hands.

“Why can’t I remember anything? Where is…”

Crowley sucks in an unnecessarily noisy breath and Aziraphale turns around to look at him, and Crowley is so relieved to be able to look into his huge, confused eyes again that he grins, perhaps slightly manically.

“I don’t remember _me_ ,” Aziraphale mutters, vaguely waving in Crowley’s direction, seemingly unaware of what his hands are doing, “But _you_ , on the other hand, you are…”

Crowley doesn’t care if it takes a few days to wait until Aziraphale’s memory gets restored. Must be the side effects of his original body being repaired, or something he traded away to be able to come back here unshattered, and frankly, Crowley is just so ridiculously happy to have him back safely, that he has to force himself not to sing out his next words: 

“Angel, I’m Crowley, I am your –”

“--Husband?” Aziraphale states with an earnest, joyful expression with a barely questioning tilt there and gone. “Yes, I felt the warmth in myself surge up the minute I’ve seen you. I remember _you_ , my dear.”

Crowley freezes, mouth hanging open. He wants to ask ‘What the fuck, Angel?’ but what makes it out of his throat is an elongated “eeeeeeeerrrr”. Totally not high pitched at all.

Meanwhile, his thoughts are racing quicker than he ever made the Bentley go. Which is really saying something.  
  
If he goes along with it… well, he can always write it off as a joke later, right? Even if the thought alone makes his insides hurt. He wants to see the angel blush when he is restored and figures out his amnesiac assumption (he thinks it might even be greater than when he proposed to eat in a BDSM coffee before, and Crowley still _dreams about that blush_ sometimes), and he wants to see how Aziraphale reacts anyway. In this state, how will he act? Will he be – soft and loving, perhaps? Crowley’s insides shake just with the thought alone. 

No, he mustn’t think of that. He has to focus on Future Aziraphale, blushing and embarrassed as _seven hells_ when he realises he was the one who suggested such a ridiculous human thing. ‘ _You go too fast for me_ ’ Aziraphale. Husbands.

Yes, Crowley cannot possibly miss this opportunity. He can pretend, just for a minute, with clear enough conscience. It’s certainly a thing _demons_ do, playing pranks on their friends. He didn’t even start this one. No risk at all. 

And still, somewhere in the process of saying ‘yes’, that simple, one syllable word, Crowley chokes on his own saliva, face flaming and brain reeling.

“Ah, yes, of course, we are,” Aziraphale says with utter conviction, seemingly not bothered by supposedly marrying a complete disaster, and he continues, “Oh dear, are you all right?”

“Something in my throat,” Crowley whimpers to him, and it’s true and all. It’s his heart. Trying to escape.

Aziraphale tuts good-naturedly, stepping closer to bring his hand firmly down on Crowley’s back a few times. He forgets to breathe, remembers all too late that he didn’t need to breathe at all in the first place, and stops breathing just to focus on that point of connection between their bodies.

But wait, how does the angel know the correct response to someone chocking but not remember his own self? That’s bloody idiotic.

And still, this, or something similar happened before, Crowley tries to think around the ‘he’s touching me! he’s touching me!’ shrieking part of his brain. ‘ _When getting the same human body back after discorporation, it’s rebooting may take two to five business days.’_ Ah, there was always something.

“What do you remember?” Crowley asks, getting back to the swing of things. This is an unfortunate inconvenience. He is kind of the master of those. Things will be fine.

“Not much,” The angel replies mournfully, with cutely furrowed brows. “What was I doing?”

 _Stepping in front of cars like an idiot!_ Crowley wants to snap, but he can’t very well say that, can he.

“Don’t stress, it will all come back, angel.”

That leaves them just staring at each other for a few seconds with Crowley desperately searching for things to say.

“Actually, you were just about to make me tea!” He blurts as he gets the idea, sneakily sending the bottle of wine back to the pantry and hoping Aziraphale haven’t spotted it. He stirs him towards the kitchen, in what he’s hoping is a soothing and aloof manner.

“Tea bags are here,” he says, opening the cupboard, “kettle there.”

Muscle memory aids the angel’s hand in heating the water, getting ready the mugs and the saucers, but he hesitates to reach towards the variety of teas (it’s a mess, really. There must be at least forty different flavours there, no wonder he never finds the nice strawberry one for Crowley without a miracle).

“Which one is your favourite?”

Crowley would never tell anyone this, but he is having the time of his life watching him. He is _adorable_ in his uncertainty, simply delicious.

“Guess!” He orders the angel, cheerfully grinning.

Just for a second, something of the so familiar exasperation shines through Aziraphale’s eyes, but he decides to humour him it seems because he points at one of the tins in the cupboard. Crowley isn’t even shifting his gaze from the nervous swallow his angel does to check which one.

“Would you look at that?” He says, bright and flashing a huge “You’ve just won the Lottery! Which I definitely helped design!” smile at him. “That’s my favourite!”

And Aziraphale flushes, pleased. Not knowing better than to suspect Crowley of mockery. They will have the loveliest two to five business days, the demon just knows it.

When his beautiful, so-proud-of-myself smile becomes simply too much for Crowley to bear, he glances down on the tea that’s since been transferred into his mug. Ginger and lemon. Not bad at all. Certainly worth to have in exchange for that expression.

“C-Crowley? Which one is mine?” Aziraphale asks, a bit tense again. He’s annoyed by not remembering his own favourite drink. Vulnerable enough that Crowley decides against tricking him into drinking chamomile, which he hates with a raging passion. If Crowley remembers correctly. Which he does, of course. It was in 1973, in Amsterdam, where they ‘accidentally’ ran into each other after something or else, and sat in to try a small tea house, and Crowley ordered chamomile and Aziraphale said ‘ _oh, I just abhor the taste of that_ ’.

So he gently closes the cupboard containing the teas, opening the ones where the cocoa is.

“Your favourite is not tea, but hot cocoa, angel,” he whispers conspiratorially, and somehow, with Aziraphale leaning close, eager, it feels like they’re sharing a sweet secret.

“Really? How come you’re so sure?” Aziraphale breathes back, and Crowley laughs at the absurdity of someone who’s met him for more than once not being aware of how much the angel loves the sweet beverage. Almost as much as books.

"Hah, I'm your husband, aren't I?" He wants it to sound cocky and sure and all right, a little bit flirty too, and instead, it’s just pathetic, something of a wondering bewilderment.

But Aziraphale smiles again, relieved. So in the end, it doesn’t matter. They finish making each other’s drinks in companionable silence, and after everyone taking hold of his own, head to the sofa.

“So where are we now?” Aziraphale asks on the way, and it doesn’t hold the previous frustration.

“Um… This is the planet Earth, the year… eh, 2019, late July. We’re in your bookshop,” Crowley motions around, sitting back on his usual armchair comfortably, while Aziraphale settles his mug on the coffee table between them and sits opposite him on the other side, on the sofa Crowley uses for his afternoon naps sometimes. The angel looks around in awe, clearly joyous and a bit overwhelmed, and Crowley is so busy watching him that the next thing he says completely blindsides him:

“It’s quite dark now, dear. You can take off your sunglasses.”

Right. But how will he explain the eyes? Would Aziraphale find them off-putting when he technically doesn’t have a reference of how people’s eyes are supposed to look? Only one way to find out.

Aziraphale lets out a quiet “oh” and stares at him with something on his face Crowley can’t decipher. Does he like it? Does he think it’s disgusting or wrong? The sunglasses are shaking in the demon’s hand, so he slams it onto the coffee table gently.

“Isss that it?” Crowley demands. “That’s all that you’re gonna say?”

“You look… exquisite, my darling, but… I mean it makes sense in a way that I don’t understand but… please explain?”

“Ugh,” Crowley moans, putting away that little word for later when he can obsess over it in peace for the next few decades. “It’s all so tedious, really, Eden, in the beginning, big garden thingy, I was a snake, you had a sword, humanity, yadda yadda, I’m a demon and these are my eyes, which of course would make you pause, because you’re “one of the good guys”, angel.” He can’t help but wave around in indignation, doing the ‘air quotes’ leaning closer to Aziraphale, who frankly, looks lost and a bit scared. “Your lot only gets sparkles and glowy…confetti… flower-tattoos.”

“I… see,” Aziraphale says, clearly overestimating his own cleverness, or perhaps Crowley did actually make sense there. Unlikely. “Humanity?”

_He asks about that, but not the “I was a snake”?!_

“Humans. Native species,” Crowley huffs. “Look like us but they are _much_ weirder."

“Hmm.”

The silence is awkward, and Crowley feels like letting his ink-black wings out just to shock Aziraphale a bit more thoroughly. They are uncomfortable anyway, twitchy, just like everything else in Crowley.

More of an excuse to prolong having to say anything in response to his rant than real thirst, Aziraphale raises his mug and blows on the liquid inside. Takes a slow sip, and…

Crowley loses his breath as the angel’s eyes widen in surprise, as his whole frame relaxes with the pleasure he gets from the taste. He samples it again, small but greedy little mouthful, as if drinking ambrosia. He is positively glowing when he exclaims:

“This is wonderful!”

Crowley doesn’t know what his face is doing, but his insides are melting like ice cream on the sunny pavement. Aziraphale drinks again, and a tiny bit of chocolate stays on his beaming upper lip. He looks absolutely ridiculous, and Crowley thinks, desperately: ‘ _I love every atom of you_ ’.

“Really, it’s the best thing, Crowley! Have you tried it?”

“Of course I have, angel,” he is aware that he is smiling back at him sloppily, but for fuck’s sakes, for once no one is there to see. _Aziraphale_ is barely even there.

This version of him, the one who is him essentially, but not completely _him_ -him yet, Aziraphale who thinks he is his husband, giggles softly and remarks.

“ ’Angel’! That’s awfully clever. It’s an endearment and my species at the same time! I bet no one even realises! Well thought, my dear.”

Crowley blinks at him.

Is this how _his_ Aziraphale would behave without Heaven’s influences on him? Or perhaps he only notices now, not affected by their friendship, their history? Was this something he briefly wondered about, but not interpreted it in any way, back when Crowley first started calling him such?

He is saved from having to come up with an answer because Aziraphale is so deeply in love with his chocolate, his attention returns to it and he only looks back up to Crowley to ask something much, much worse.

“How did we fall in love?”

Crowley feels his heart shutter to a stop again. He can’t say ‘ _For me, it was as natural as breathing- you lifted your wing to shield me from the rain and I was gone_ ”. He won’t say: ‘ _I don’t know, angel, because you never have._ ’

So he can’t be honest, but he can’t joke either, not about this.

“I—don’t remember,” he finally mutters, lamely. “We’ve known each other for literal ages, it just… happened.”

Except it didn’t, even though Crowley waited for just that, and waited and gave up waiting and then waited some more for longer than it took for whole civilisations to be created and then destroyed.

Aziraphale seems satisfied with this answer, though, and he barrels on:

“What do we usually do?”

Crowley panics, just for a second. This is starting to resemble those conversations he has with Aziraphale where he is not sure how much he can say without giving his feelings completely away.

“We go out to eat. Walk to the lake and feed the ducks. We have champagne at the Ritz or drink wine here. We… talk. Discuss work, or your books, or…” _The Antichrist._ “…ah, everything, really.”

Aziraphale smiles at him softly.

“That sounds nice, my dear,” he finishes his chocolate with a last gulp and a satisfied little sigh, puts the mug down, and to Crowley’s astonishment he stands and he steps close to him and leans down, presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, his lips touching briefly at a point, half on Crowley’s face, half on his lips. The contact is there for a second and suddenly gone again, and the angel is saying “Thank you,” as he steps away. And, “Drink yours, it’s getting cold.”

Crowley’s turns in his seat to stare at him leaving with the chocolate-y mug, his eyes following him until he disappears into the kitchen.

He is numb, but the panic doesn’t come. What’s more, no one else comes either. No representative of Heaven or Hell appears, not even the Almighty booms down to give him a scolding for inappropriately touching an angel, nor does She strike Crowley dead with a bolt of lightning.

Crowley starts to laugh quietly. No one actually cares, do they?

He is still chuckling, some sort of small sound that he fears will turn into sobbing if left unchecked, but he can only stop it when Aziraphale comes back, smoothing a hand through his hair and sitting down to the coffee table opposite him, so close their knees are touching.

“I’m sorry,” he says, bashful, and a little bit shy, “I seem to have this itching thing in my hand? Like it just wants to reach out and touch you, so I thought perhaps if I just indulge in it for a moment before you tell me what we do in the evenings, that would be most—generous of you, I suppose. Can I touch you?”

“Please, go ahead,” Crowley croaks, wondering if this will be something he will have to provide an explanation to Aziraphale later when he remembers. Or if it will be something they’ll simply never, ever mention again. He might die, in that case. Although he might just die now, too, when the angel raises his index finger and follows the shape of Crowley’s eyebrows reverently.

His cheeks, his chin, his forehead, under his eyes, the length of his nose, his jaw – some of them get the same ‘one finger, slow exploration’ treatment, some have the blessing of Aziraphale’s whole hand smoothing over them. Crowley tries to watch his expression for anything other than intense focus, and at the same time sits so painfully still as if that could keep him from falling to pieces. Then Aziraphale lowers his hand and smiles at him, with no real recognition in his eyes, and slowly pulls Crowley into a hug.

Crowley, desperately anxious, afraid that the shaking of his insides will manifest on the outside at the worst possible moment… he can’t take it, the warm, false contact for more than a few seconds (small eternity).

He states wretchedly, in a small voice:

“We don’t do this.”

Aziraphale lets him go immediately.

“How come? Why not?” He sees his face, is shocked at the anguish there Crowley cannot hide in time. “Oh, I'm so sorry.”

He doesn’t remember anything. He doesn’t remember _six thousand_ years worth of jokes, conversations, dinners, drunken rants, disagreements, their walks and the way they helped save the world. He doesn’t remember anything and the first thing he does is touch Crowley with something akin to love. Something is bleeding so badly in Crowley he fears it will start to manifest as tears in his eyes.

“Why are you uncomfortable?” He is asked gently, quietly.

"This is not you. You never sit on furniture unproperly."

Aziraphale huffs, like that’s a frivolous thing to say.

"Well right now it's more important to be closer to you than how one is supposed to sit on the furniture," he remarks sullenly, so similar to how he speaks to Crowley sometimes that he has to squeeze his eyes shut in pain.

He is to blame for this whole mess, he knows. If he could have just said: “no, you are not my husband” at the beginning. He wouldn’t have to be angry at Heaven, Aziraphale, The Earth and himself and his stupid non-existent tears. Crowley takes his face and presses their foreheads together (he can’t bear to see his innocent, pleading expression) and snarls:

“This was a stupid idea. **I want you back!** You-you.”

"Remember!" He closes his eyes and begs, and tries to will it to be. One more sodding “miracle”.

Time passes as waits for Aziraphale to move away, to recoil. As if Crowley was too hot or too slippery or simply… not enough. Surely, _if_ he remembers… But the angel only sighs, and takes Crowley’s shaking hands into his own.

 _It didn’t work. If he'd remember what just happened, if he’d remember **himself** he'd let me go immediately._ There is a sniff, and Crowley looks up finally. He feels drained, bone-weary to have to deal with the amnesiac Aziraphale, but…

Aziraphale is sitting there, looking at him with tears welling his eyes, soaking his face.

He is back, and Crowley wants to run away. He can’t know, he can’t know – the ancient voice in his head chants. Aziraphale’s eyes tell him he knows anyway.

"I have been hurting you, haven't I?" The angel asks, self-hate and heartbreak in his voice, a thumb stroking Crowley’s knuckles all the same.

Crowley has no words, only hope, swelling treacherously in the place where his heart used to be.

"I was afraid, Crowley,” His angel whispers, so full of shame. “I’m so sorry.”

“But I have to be brave now, don’t I, sweetest?” He asks, wonderingly, reaching for Crowley’s face with their joined hands. Swallows, hard. “I have to tell you that-- I have loved you, more than anything in existence for a long time now. I love you, Crowley.”

Crowley pulls him completely on top of him, and not minding Aziraphale’s blush or clumsy settling on his lap, dives in to kiss him.

Aziraphale tastes like cocoa and a bit like salt from his tears. Crowley is sure he will also break down sobbing at some point (preferably not in front of _him_ or worse, his plants), but for now, he just has to fuse them together as successfully as he can manage.

They kiss until it is not unfamiliar, until they have to stop because it’s getting hot and hard and sweaty in the most delicious manner.

Crowley slides a hand down to Aziraphale’s belly, hesitating before touching his erection.

“Maybe not just yet, dear boy?” Aziraphale asks, pupils huge and face red. He’s never looked so dishelmed before.

Crowley grins at him, shrugging.

“It will be overwhelming enough to kiss you all night,” to which Aziraphale blushes prettily enough that Crowley feels like a winner for the whole husband thing too. He is still petty enough to bring it up though.

“Sssso. Husband.”

Indeed, a deeper blush.

“Oh, hush,” Aziraphale moans, embarrassed, and shuts him up with a kiss. Which turns into more than one, more than ten, just enough until they feel composed enough to talk again.

“If we are still on this topic, for the sake of complete honesty I do have to tell you,” Aziraphale rushes, and interrupts himself with another soft kiss to Crowley’s lower lip, “Even if you make fun of me later for it that I would absolutely marry you for real if it would be possible.”

Crowley, already drunk on love, gets even prouder of himself. Of course, he’d marry him, Crowley is very marriable. Except for…

“How would our sides like that?”

Aziraphale worries his upper lip between his teeth and looks around the bookshop for spies.

“I suppose… they don’t really have to know about it, do they?”

Crowley kisses him softly. They have time.

“We could be… ineffable husbands?” He asks, grinning at his angel.

Aziraphale smiles back, gaze loving, fond and adoring in equal measure.

“We could be that, my dear, yes.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> please comment, its good for my soul and incredibly inspiring to get up in the mornings to :)


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